A_L_T: ALTmetrics, though nothing to do with ALT, will be of interest to many in the ALT community - http://t.co/lZRmfBMy
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JISC EMBEDDED OBJECT Fascinating records from the Church Courts of York are now available on-line at the Borthwick Institute for Archives at the University of York, allowing historians new insights into a huge variety of topics over many centuries.
From arguments about church taxes on liquorice, roses and pigeon dung, to families disputing wills and inheritance, the records paint a vivid picture of the social, economic, political, religious and emotional world of people living in a period from the 14th to 19th centuries.
Alastair Dunning, programme manager at JISC, said: "Digitisation of this resource opens up the records to a far greater range of research and teaching uses. To date use has been limited by the physical format and the conservation needs of the documents. These new digital images can be shuffled around, enlarged, re-ordered and compared in ways that are not possible with the physical items themselves."
Digitisation of the York Cause Papers, which record the proceedings of the ecclesiastical courts of York from 1300 to 1858, has been funded through a grant from JISC. The development means the papers are set to become one of the most widely-used historical records in the UK.
Borthwick Institute Keeper of Archives Chris Webb said: "Until 1858 the church courts, under the authority of bishops, had jurisdiction over a wide variety of crimes which we would now consider secular and the business of the state.
"They oversaw cases concerning marriage and separation, and disputes over wills and inheritance. They also dealt with cases involving personal reputation and defamation, the maintenance of the Church, the orthodoxy of its services, and the regulation of the moral and professional conduct of the clergy, schoolmasters, physicians and midwives.
"The Church of England was supported by a system of taxation known as tithes and the records also show exactly how this taxation was calculated and how people tried to evade it."
Professor Mark Ormrod, from the University’s Department of History, added: "The digitisation of the Cause Papers brings to completion a comprehensive project designed specifically to allow the widest possible public access to this vitally important historical resource.
"The resource is of tremendous importance to specialists in social, economic, religious and legal history and in the history of gender, sexuality, marriage and domesticity, as well as to a wide range of users with interests in family and local history. The York Cause Papers are now set to become one of the most widely-used historical resources in the United Kingdom."
The digitisation project adds to original work funded by the Andrew W Mellon Foundation which provided an on-line catalogue. A range of detailed searches are now available which are suitable for building up a list of sources for thematic research and enable searches by personal name and place, adding to the resources available to family and local historians.
The Humanities Research Institute (HRI) at the University of Sheffield provided crucial technical support in enabling this project to link the images of the York Cause Papers with the Borthwick’s searchable database of the Cause Papers. The searchable database had been created by the Borthwick and the HRI during a previous project, funded by the Andrew W Mellon Foundation.
A_L_T: ALT's response to Ofsted's consultation on the Common Inspection Framework for England http://t.co/xe17CQ6v
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A_L_T: ALTmetrics, though nothing to do with ALT, will be of interest to many in the ALT community - http://t.co/lZRmfBMy
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A_L_T: Common Inspection Framework for the Learning and Skills sector in England: We have published our response to O... http://t.co/8gwmfBPf
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A_L_T: ALT's response to Ofsted's consultation on the Common Inspection Framework for England http://t.co/NIbc10ey
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A_L_T: An ALT response to Ofsted's consultation on the Common Inspection Framework for the Learning and Skills Sector: ... http://t.co/5d3CS3qB
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Schmoller, Seb An ALT response to Ofsted's consultation on the Common Inspection Framework for the Learning and Skills Sector. ALT.
The Living Books About Life series is written and produced by humanities scholars from universities across the world – from the UK and America to Poland and Australia – and has re-packaged and re-presented science-related research material to make it more accessible to a humanities audience.
Funded by JISC and published by the Open Humanities Press (OHP), the books address a number of scientific topics whose unifying theme is life, including air, agriculture, bioethics, cosmetic surgery, energy, neurology and human cloning.
Alastair Dunning, programme manager at JISC, said: "By drawing only on Open Access material to create these ‘Living Books about Life’, the team is helping define a new era of scholarly communication – and thereby exploiting JISC’s vision to make the results of publicly funded research available to all."
The books present recent research on these subjects in a palatable way using interactive maps, podcasts and audio-visual materials. The result, which can be shared freely amongst both academic and non-academic individuals alike, is an engaging and diverse resource for researching and teaching relevant science issues across the humanities.
As well as bridging the divide between the humanities and sciences, the three partner institutions working on the project – led by Coventry University and including the University of Kent and Goldsmiths, University of London – have ‘rethought’ the conventional book by developing a new, low-cost and sustainable model for creating, publishing and sharing content.
By embracing the age of open information and the increasing prominence of crowdsourcing, the project leaders ensured each volume in the Living Books About Life series is a ‘living’ medium itself, able to be updated by readers through ongoing collaborative processes of writing, editing, remixing and commenting.
Gary Hall, Professor of Media and Performing Arts at Coventry University, said: "The ‘Living Books About Life’ series doesn’t just represent a new, exciting and more easily digestible way for people without a background in science to learn about important scientific issues – it also has the potential to refashion the process of book publishing itself. It’s a pioneering example of a sustainable, low-cost, low-tech approach to publishing high-quality books that can be shared easily and freely on an open access basis with anyone who has an interest."
Nicholas Mirzoeff, Professor of Media, Culture and Communication at New York University, said: "This remarkable series transforms the humble reader into a living form, while breaking down the conceptual barrier between the humanities and the sciences in a time when scholars and activists of all kinds have taken the understanding of life to be central. Brilliant in its simplicity and concept, this series is a leap towards an exciting new future."
Read more about the initiative
Image creative commons licensed by Halfrain
Tracking the UK’s research outputs will become easier in the future thanks to JISC and Research Councils UK (RCUK) working together to utilise their expertise.
Over the coming months a piece of work called the RIO Extension project will take place, to scope the issues and requirements from universities, funders and researchers in managing the information about research outputs. The aim of the work is to provide the UK education and research sector with clear, practical guidance on recording and sharing information about its research outputs, so that it can be reused for a variety of purposes, including by the systems used by the Research Councils.
Neil Jacobs, JISC’s digital infrastructure programme director, says, “The UK research community punches well above its weight in terms of the quality and quantity of research outputs. However, these are not systematically recorded, so it can be hard to demonstrate that impact. Researchers, universities and funders have a common interest in ensuring that the outputs from UK research are visible, and that this is achieved without putting undue burden on the sector.
“This can be done using both institutional repositories and more sophisticated research information systems but, in either case, it is important that these interoperate effectively with the systems operated by research funders and others. The RIO Extension project will describe a roadmap for the sector to achieve that.”
Four of the Research Councils are shortly to launch the Research Outcomes System, which will be the primary means by which these Research Councils will collect this kind of information. JISC is supporting the creation of this service by ensuring that it works effectively and efficiently with institutional systems, including the UK repository infrastructure. This flexible and community-owned infrastructure is well suited to meet the demands of the 21st century research community.
Dr Sue Smart, Chair of the RCUK Research Outcomes Project, comments, “With this clear and practical guidance agreed for the research community and Research Councils to use, we can work together to significantly lessen the burden on institutions and organisations wanting to collect this data.”
The RIO Extension project is also part of a larger programme of work scoping and delivering shared repository and curation infrastructure services at a national and international level. This work supports the strategic requirements of universities, colleges, JISC and the Research Councils to build a robust repository infrastructure for the future. It also contributes to the aspirations of the UK Open Access Implementation Group’s 2012 strategy.
Explore JISC’s repository infokit and find out how it could help your organisation
A_L_T: Karen Cator, Director of US Office of Educational Technology. Remotely given speech at #altc2011 now live - http://t.co/2L2zIXI1
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“@educause: Is your campus collaborating? Learn how entomology labs & Second Life helped participation http://t.co/n3O8yb5l” #mscidel #elpp
A_L_T: @hopkinsdavid Clayton Wright does not publish it like that. Sorry.
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A_L_T: Educational Technology and Related Education Conferences for January to June 2012: Wright, Clayton R. (2011) Edu... http://t.co/GyCy9n8Q
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The University for the Creative Arts (UCA) has been awarded funding from JISC to digitise the archive of celebrated British designer Zandra Rhodes CBE.
Zandra Rhodes, who was made UCA’s first Chancellor in 2010, has played a significant role in the development of British fashion, helping establish its reputation on the world stage. Her diverse client base has included Diana, Princess of Wales; Jackie Onassis, Freddie Mercury; Kylie Minogue and Sarah Jessica Parker.
A digital images of Zandra Rhodes’ innovative work produced as part of this project will be stored in a digital database. This will be publically accessible, providing an important new global resource for fashion students, designers and researchers world wide. An Open Education Resource will embed a selection of images of her garments within the wider cultural context and support learning and teaching in the field.
Zandra said, “I am thrilled that this project is happening and students will be able to appreciate my work.”
“I am thrilled that this project is happening and students will be able to appreciate my work.”
Professor Kerstin Mey, Director of Research and Enterprise at UCA, said, “We are delighted to be working with Zandra on this exciting project. This digital archive will track a vital dimension of the evolution of British fashion and capture some of its landmark moments.
“It will provide inspiration and learning for new and emerging generations of professional fashion designers, but will also complement research on the overarching cultural situation and zeitgeist of the later 20th Century and early 21st Century.”
This project is funded by JISC as part of its Content programme 2011-2013, Paola Marchionni JISC’s digitisation manager says, “JISC is pleased to support collaboration between the higher education sector and private archives such as Zandra Rhodes’ fashion collection. These partnerships are vital to open up access to resources which wouldn’t otherwise be available, not only for the benefit of students and researchers in the UK but for the enjoyment and use of the public at large as Open Educational Resources.”
Wright, Clayton R. (2011) Educational Technology and Related Education Conferences for January to June 2012. In: Various.
A_L_T: ALT-C 2012 - A confrontation with reality: The 19th international conference of the Association for Learning T... http://t.co/26eZnwJo
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Looking at a photo-mashup @portwiture: http://t.co/KZOlhJeJ an example of a focused mashup, sadly with not much value for education #mscidel
In this podcast JISC's Rebecca O'Brien chats to Kevin Ashley, director of the DCC, about the event and what delegates can hope to gain by taking part.
Listen to the podcast (Duration 6:58)
JISC EMBEDDED OBJECT
JISC is supporting universities and colleges to create a business case for an integrated IT strategy to help them make better investment decisions.
The business benefit of strategic ICT is to be explored in a JISC webinar on 7 December for information service managers and practitioners, as well as senior leaders looking for a joined-up approach to technology.
The webinar will discuss how to conduct an audit of where your IT provision is now, establish your investment priorities and make decisions, using a new JISC toolkit.
The toolkit that the webinar will explore includes a range of checklists, case studies and good practice guidelines to help senior managers identify, analyse, assess and develop their current maturity level in IT.
Register for the webinar on Wednesday 7 December at 2pm – 3pm GMT
A_L_T: Important viewing/listening for all. Dónal Fitzpatrick's "I have a blind student in my Maths/Science class" http://t.co/SKJZduUR
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A_L_T: "I have a blind student in my maths/science class" #altc2011 talk by Dónal FitzPatrick - http://t.co/C3asXVjj
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RT @flittleton: Virtual graduation for #mscel students in SL on Thursday 24th November 11am GMT - All welcome! http://t.co/8NDEIAIU #mscel #mscidel
A_L_T: Important viewing/listening for all. Dónal Fitzpatrick's "I have a blind student in my Maths/Science class" http://t.co/SKJZduUR
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